My holidays: Trygve Wakenshaw

Comedian Trygve Wakenshaw wants to hide in a small Mongolian cave to surprise his brother.

What was your greatest holiday?

I've become quite a well-travelled man over the last couple of years, dashing from city to city and country to country like some gallivanting minstrel at the whim of the tide and the current. There are plenty of cities I love and would like to spend more time, to revisit, to unpack my bags and buy a blender or some other household appliance. BUT, the greatest holiday that springs to mind was with my Dad, and my two brothers...

Dad bought an old, red, Bedford truck. He had a metal frame welded together to fit on the back, and a blue canvas tent custom made to cover us from the sun (mostly) and the rain (once).

He "borrowed" the couch from the lounge and bolted it to the truck with some seatbelts poking through it. We packed lightly, threw a couple of foam mattresses and duvets in the back and spent two weeks pootling along the roads of the South Island.

We stopped beside lakes, and in little beachy coves, we crawled through caves in Takaka, we met friends of Dad's that he'd been to university with, we found holiday parks, and read, and basked in the sun. I was about 15 at the time. It was the best.

And the worst?

The previous year to this excursion, a group of friends and I had spent the best New Year of our lives in each other's company in a small thatched roof cottage in a tiny village in Cornwall, England. It was wintry and clear and we lit the fire and spent a wonderful time wandering the meadows and hopping the streams and searching for a character called 'Pipey' in the trenches.

The following year we tried to re-create. This time in a small village in the Loire Valley of France. We rented an old water-mill and gathered a group, not the same party as the previous year, but good people... mostly.

I drove half the team to the exquisite Moulin, four hours from Paris. The next day I had to return to Paris and get the other half of the team as their inability to organise themselves started to emerge.

The house was cold. Freezing. The logs provided for the fire had been sitting outside for several winters and were wet through. The shops in the nearest village were closed. Totally closed for the Christmas period and our preparedness ran out after lunch on New Year's Eve.

The disorganised couple who had already cost me a day of relaxation decided they needed to leave early. I drove them to the train station. It was 45 minutes away. It took four hours to return after a lengthy drive in a circle and a slow dawning that I was in fact lost.

No one talked to each other. All our energy was on survival, finding food and warmth, and waiting for that great moment we could leave this disgusting, cold and miserable, horrid little water-mill.

If we bump into you on holiday, what are you most likely to be doing?

I apologise profusely for being in your way.

"Oh look! You've spilled your gelato! That was quite a bump. Are you okay? I don't speak the language and cannot assist you in getting medical help. Maybe this man can help... Excoosy moi meesiuer, mon ami... hass... boompd into... moi."

If we could teleport you to one place in New Zealand for a week-long holiday, where would it be?

I hope you can. You've really got me feeling perky about the possibility of a sudden ripping through space and time to land in the Catlins. For you reading types that don't know about the Catlins, it's down in the South Island. South-er than Dunedin. It's all beautiful and untouched and rugged and waterfalls and sea and forest and bird. We visited it on our family-holiday-in-truck and stayed (or did we just pass by) a tiny beach house/a bach/a crib (that's the "correct" term when you're in the south). The whole house was a big as a normal living room. The walls were papered with old newspapers, possibly from 1950. It was the most beautiful and isolated and inspiring.

How about for a dream holiday internationally?

My brother, Sevrin, had this great plan once, to travel to Mongolia and learn their local knowledge of mountaineering, sleep and live in yerts, and move nomadically through the mountains on skis.

I would therefore wait until this became a reality then teleport to a small cave in a hill that he was going to pass. I would dress in a Hawaiian shirt and little white shorts like Hawkeye from M*A*S*H, take some gin, vermouth, olives and some fine glassware, then when Sevrin walked past I'd say "Excuse me good sir, care to join me?"

He would be surprised and I would laugh. Then we would drink Martinis and I would ask him if I could borrow some warmer clothes because I'm freezing.

What's the dumbest thing you've ever done when travelling?

I'm very smart and avoid doing dumb things because of my big brain. But my friend once bought a really cheap iPhone from a guy on the street. Unfortunately the reason it was so cheap is because it was a bar of soap. It was a really expensive bar of soap.

Complete this sentence: I can't travel without...

...becoming so excited that my head spins and my joy explodes and my heart leaps and my fingers gurn and my toes twinkle and my knees exfoliate themselves with the thrill of new things. I really like new things.

What's the best travel tip you've ever been given?

If you want to learn the language of the place you are in, find old people. They have nothing to busily avoid you with, they are amused by your stupidity, and they are more or less quite patient at getting through a simple little conversation about the weather or sandwich fillings.

What was the most memorable meal you've had while travelling?

In Paris. An old restaurant called Chartier on rue du Fauborg Montmartre. It has been around since 1900 and looks the same now as it did then. It's a huge eating hall. The waiters dress formally as a good waiter should and serve you with their brusk personalities.

Carafes of wine are slung about and traditional French meals of tripe or andouillette or steak tartare are delivered after a tray of escargots dripping with garlic butter, and for desert a rhum baba so rhum-y you can barely walk in a straight line as you leave the magnificence of the night. I've been there a few times with a few friends. Every time as special as if it was my first.

What's the best thing you've brought back from a trip?

I was in Norway in January, meeting family that I didn't know I had until about five years ago, and having a residency at Det Andre Teatret in Oslo. The best thing I've brought back came from there was my award-winning, hilarious physical comedy show Kraken.

Favourite airport to land at?

I like landing in the smaller airports and taxiing past the smaller private planes owned by enthusiasts. Seeing a guy pull his little two-seater Cessna plane over to the gas pump to fill it up for an afternoon flight. I like it when aeroplanes are a past-time. In the many travels I've been doing lately planes can become a means to an end, like a bus that flies. But secretly I still think they are wonderful and amazing displays of how brilliant humans are.

What's the next trip you've got planned?

After this little leg of comedy festivals I've got a few weeks of what I like to call "Trygve-time". I don't often call it this. Usually just for Q&As. In fact, only in Q&As. In fact, only in this Q&A...

Just now. I'm thinking about heading to Sri Lanka for 10 nights. I know nothing about Sri Lanka. Tea? Cricket? But it will be the first time I've taken myself on a holiday where I don't have a purpose. Usually I meet friends, or have to perform, or study, or research, or develop a new show. This is pure "Trygve-time" (argh! I did it again). If you have any tips feel free to tweet me them @trygve123.

• Trygve Wakenshaw returns home to perform his two award-winning shows Kraken and Squidboy (13-17 May) as part of the 2014 New Zealand International Comedy Festival in cahoots with Old Mout Cider (24 April-18 May).